All Right
by BamNutCocoBoo
Summary: episode addition for Milagro


Disclaimer:  I did not, nor could I ever, create something so incredibly COOL (for lack of a better word) as The X-Files.  All thanks and various copyright stuff goes to Chris Carter, Ten Thirteen (I made this!), and all the writers, producers, and actors.  Also big props to David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson for being so good at what they do, though I blame David for disturbing mental images and my inability to ever look at a teacup in quite the same way again.  

Author's notes:  Ok, I admit it…I've become obsessed with X-Files.  And, as usual with me, it took me until after the show was over to realize it.  I'd always liked it and would watch it when I'd catch a rerun on here or there, but never got into it until over Christmas break.  Thanks to TNT and Sci-Fi, however, I now stay up until 3AM.  Sleep?  Who needs it.  I told myself I wasn't going to write anything about it though, or at least not until I finish my other writing priorities, but when I saw Milagro about a week ago, I knew it needed another scene or two.  So this fic was born in my head at 2AM, and I felt the overwhelming need to write it down.  I also have to add that I purposefully did not read anyone else's stories centered around this episode, just so I knew my ideas would be my own.  So if this sounds just like another story you've read, it's purely coincidental and I apologize.

 Enjoy!  And tell me what you think.

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All Right

            Mulder stared hard at Phillip Padgett.  The man was a creep, in every aspect of the word.  His eyes…there was something so downright disturbing about the way he looked at you.  His whole air was one of a superior attitude.  He used words like an artist uses a paintbrush, as many writers do, but he spoke in riddles.  Now, as Mulder looked at him, gun drawn, he silently wished for a reason to kill this man who had evaded a guilty sentence, and had successfully freaked out his partner.  Scully.  What in the world had happened there?  This sick psycho creep had tried to get her into his bed.  Mulder knew Scully better than that.  But when he walked in on the two of them…it certainly hadn't looked like she was in danger.  It looked like she was just a few minutes away from fulfilling her character's role in Padgett's book completely.  He glared over at Padgett.  If that jerk had laid a finger on her…

            But now was not the time to think through this.  Now was the time to figure out exactly what Padgett was up to, as he held his finished novel just out of reach of the incinerator flames.

            "You came down here to give these instructions to your accomplice?"

            "No.  He told me how it ends."

            "When?"

            "In my apartment."

            "You were alone up there."

            A sudden gunshot was fired, the sound muffled through the floors of the apartment building.  Mulder took half a second to glare at Padgett accusingly and threateningly before racing off after the sound.  The look silently warned him that he was a dead man if Scully had been hurt.  As Mulder answered the call of the shot, Padgett wordlessly dropped the stack of papers into the flames and watched as his work, and his more than imagined character, slowly dissolved into fine ash.

            Scully lay on the floor, silent and motionless, as Mulder burst through the door.  Seeing her covered in blood and not moving, he feared the worst.  His face showed hardly any expression, a sign that he was truly scared to death.  Had he been too late?  He walked over and knelt down beside her.

            There was someone above her.  She could feel the penetrating glare of eyes.  Her own eyes popped open with a frightened gasp, fearing beyond fear that it was HIM, expecting to see the hooded figure hovering over her, hand poised in a second attempt to reach into her chest and tear her heart from her body.  Her eyes were instead greeted by the comfortable familiarity of Mulder's concerned face.  The face of the man she trusted more than anyone.  The overwhelming sense of relief washed over her and she could do nothing but reach for him, clawing at his back desperately, wanting to be held by his protective embrace, wanting to cling to him as closely as possible.  She felt secure in his arms.

            He held her.  There was nothing else he could do, but he knew it was enough for now.  Her body was shaking against him as she sobbed into his shoulder.  The overflow of tears soaked through his shirt, and he could feel them on his skin.  She was crying, and it tore him up inside.  This was Scully…brave, strong, never-show-emotion Scully…freely shedding tears.  What must she have gone through?  Her eyes...her eyes had shown fear.  Fear to a degree that he never would've thought Scully capable of feeling.  It was an emotion rarely displayed by those ice blue eyes.  And it frightened him.  He feared because she feared.  Over their six years of partnership they had become like one mind.  They knew each other's every move and every thought, and felt every emotion.

            Her sobs began to die down until she was now just softly whimpering against his shoulder.  Mulder was loath to release her, but he had to see what Padgett had done to her.  Indirectly or not, he had done it, and Mulder hated the man for it.  He gently lowered her out of his embrace, laying her head down to rest on the floor.  The blood from her blouse had soaked onto his shirt, and he looked down at it briefly before looking back at her, at the source of the crimson stain.  Her blouse was still soaked, it was still fresh.  The blood from her injury had not yet stopped flowing.

            Wordlessly, Mulder lifted his hands to the buttons of her blouse and began to undo them slowly.  He turned his gaze up to her eyes to silently let her know his intentions.  There was no longer any fear there.  Fear had been replaced by trust.  She still could not speak, but she didn't have to.  He would take care of her.  She had never doubted that.  The second her eyes had met his face she knew she was safe.

            Mulder pulled apart the sides of her blouse and looked down.  What he saw filled him with both fear and anger.  Fear for Scully and what had almost happened to her, and anger for Padgett and what he had almost done to her.  Her flesh was ragged, torn.  It had been separated and pulled apart just like Mulder had done with her blouse seconds before.  The injury was not deep, he noticed with a sigh of relief.  It wasn't very bad at all.  Just the skin had been injured, the blood made it look worse than it was.  His fingers traced slowly around the tear in her flesh, his mind forming the image of a hand creating the wound by trying to reach into her chest.  He looked up to meet her gaze once again.  Tears softly flowed from his eyes as he just looked at her.  His fingers left her bloody chest and gently caressed the side of her face.  "Oh, Scully" he breathed softly.  

            She brought her hand up to rest over top of his, turning and pressing her cheek into the palm of his hand.  "I'm all right, Mulder.  I'm all right" she whispered tenderly.  Her eyes met his once again, and he saw that she was.

* * *

           Scully sat on his couch, blouse still open.  Mulder had gone to change his shirt, and returned to the room with a damp washcloth, a bandage, and a clean T-shirt in hand.  He sat down beside Scully on the couch.  Leaning over her, he began to lift the washcloth up to her skin, but then thought better of what he was about to do.  He stopped and held it out to her.  "Here.  You can, uh, clean yourself up."  

           She didn't miss the awkward tone in his voice, and smiled slightly as she took the cloth from his hand.  "Thank you" she said softly, and began to remove the red streaks from her chest and neck.  He watched her silently for a moment, and then turned away.

           Mulder had to turn away.  When he had first opened up her blouse, it was out of concern for her safety and well-being.  But now that he knew there was no danger, he simply could not watch her running the washcloth over her smooth skin.  The act was so…sensual.  It drove him crazy, and he didn't want to be feeling those kinds of things.  Not now.  Not after what had happened.  This just wasn't the time for thoughts like that.

           Scully finished cleaning the blood from her skin, and set the washcloth down next to the equipment they had been using to monitor Padgett less than an hour ago. And now Padgett was dead.  One of the tenants had discovered him lying on the floor of the furnace room and had called the police.  Dead.  Murdered in the same way that his character had murdered others, though they were calling it a suicide.  Maybe it was.  Maybe loneliness had taken its toll on him.  Or maybe he had been nothing more than a slave to his own imagination.  

           She carefully placed the bandage over her wound, thanking God that she had not been hurt worse.  Glancing over and noticing that Mulder was still turned away, she slipped off her bloodied blouse and put on the oversized T-shirt.  She looked at the equipment once again as she set her blouse down, and her thoughts returned to Padgett.  All those things he had said to her.  How did he know?  She sat and stared straight ahead for several minutes before breaking the silence.

           "He was right, you know.  You were right" she said softly.

           Mulder turned to look at her questioningly, trying to get his mind on what she was saying and not on how surprisingly…_good_ she looked in his T-shirt.

           "If…if you hadn't come into the bedroom when you did…I, I don't know what I would've done.  What I would've let him do.  It was as though I wasn't in control of my own actions.  Like they had all been predetermined for me."

           He looked at her in surprise.  She had denied earlier that anything would've happened.  But he did know her better than that, and he knew that she never would've gone into his apartment out of her own free will to begin with.  

           "You were a character in his book.  You saw how his other character came to life.  You really didn't have any control over your actions."

           She looked down.  "I know.  And that frightens me more than I can say."  Her eyes looked up at him, searching for the answers to her questions.  "How did he know, Mulder?  How could he possibly know so much about me?"

           "He was a stalker, Scully.  You said yourself that he told you he had been watching you.  The rest of his knowledge came from imagining your character.  It wasn't that he knew what you were going to do, but rather he was the one silently willing you to do it."

           She pondered this a moment as they sat in silence.

           "So it was true?  All of what I read about you is really true?"

           She looked startled.  "What do you mean?"

           "That you're lonely.  That you feel if a man thinks of you simply as a beautiful woman, then you'll be criticized and viewed as soft and incapable in your work.  That the respect you demand has left your heart yearning, wishing you could let someone in?  Let someone see that side of you?"

           Scully looked down at the floor.  There was nothing she could say.

           He placed a finger under her chin and lifted it up so her eyes met his.  "Scully, you know I respect you more than anyone else.  But you are beautiful, Scully.  I respect you as the tough-as-nails, get out of my way, strong and feisty FBI agent that you are, but still see the soft, beautiful woman underneath.

           He released her chin and she looked back down.  "I know you do, Mulder.  I don't worry about showing that side of myself around you.  After all we've seen, after all we've been through together.

           "And God knows you've seen me bawl like a baby more than one time."

           She smiled and looked back up at him.  The two shared a lingering gaze, both happy to have the other in their life, knowing that nobody else would ever understand the depths of their partnership.

           Scully broke the stare and looked back down again.  "He was right about another thing too."  She paused, not knowing where this was headed and not sure she wanted to go there.  But she couldn't keep it in.  She had grown tired of trying to hide it.  "About me being in love."

           "Yeah, I was wondering about that.  Who's the lucky guy?"

           "Skinner" she said in absolute seriousness.  She looked back up in time to catch his expression.

           Mulder's face gave away a bit of surprise, and he started to feel strangely uncomfortable.  Then he noticed the smile playing at her lips and the laughter in her eyes.

           She laughed out loud.  "I got you big time."  He just shook his head at her, a grin on his face as well.

           "So who is it then?"

           She sighed, the serious tone back in her voice.  "Mulder, after six years of being together, do you really even have to ask that question?"

           There was an uncomfortable silence.  "I…guess I just wasn't sure of the answer" he said softly.

           She brought her hand up to caress the side of his face.  "Don't ever doubt it."

           He reached up to run his fingers along her cheek, and then let his hand rest behind her head.  Gently he pulled her to him, and placed a soft, lingering kiss on her forehead.  She kissed his cheek and brought her other hand up to rest at the base of his neck.  They looked into each other's eyes, seeing the love and trust there, and slowly their eyes closed as their lips finally met.

           It was not a passionate kiss.  There was no wild reckless abandon.  It was a soft, sweet, slow, and long kiss.  A kiss born of mutual respect and affection that had been built up over the years.  A kiss between the deepest and truest of friends, who also happened to be in love.

           Their lips parted but their eyes remained closed as they breathed heavily, their breath mingling between them.  Scully placed a kiss on Mulder's forehead, and then sat back a bit and opened her eyes.  "Don't ever doubt it" she said again in hardly more than a whisper.

           He met her gaze.  "I won't."

           She looked away and sat in silence for a moment.  "It's getting late" she observed, but made no move to get up.  He just watched her, knowing she had something on her mind, waiting for her to speak.  Her eyes turned back to his, and he saw a hint of fear in them.  "Mulder, I…I don't think I can be alone tonight.  I keep seeing his face…"

           Without a word he pulled her into his arms, holding her tightly.  Bringing her with him, he reclined back onto the couch.  She lay beside him, her head on his chest and his arms around her.

           "It's all right" he said softly.  "It's all right."

           The last thing she saw before her eyes closed was his protective embrace around her, and as she drifted off to sleep, she knew that it was.

End


End file.
